1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the preliminary processing of documents which reflect business transactions and particularly to the correction of data commensurate with information entered by hand on documents evidencing retail sales, the documents having been initially processed by optical character recognition apparatus. More specifically, this invention is directed to optical character recognition systems for reading, correcting and preliminarily processing data, including handprinted information, from documents pertaining to retail sales transactions. The present invention also encompasses uniquely formatted documents for use by such merchants. Accordingly, the general objects of the present invention are to provide novel and improved methods, systems and documents of such characters.
2. Description of the Prior Art
While not limited thereto in its utility, the present invention is particularly well suited for use in the field of "remittance processing", i.e., in the recovery and initial processing of information entered on documents which are completed at the time a charge card holder enters into a retail transaction with a merchant. The exceedingly high volume of such transactions, coupled with the desire to minimize the time between the transaction and the charging and/or crediting of the dollar amount thereof to the appropriate accounts, imposes the requirements of speed and accuracy on the systems and techniques for processing the related documents.
Optical character recognition (OCR) apparatus has previously been used in "remittance processing" to read information from documents of the type alluded to above. The prior art OCR systems were capable of "reading", with an acceptable speed and low rejection rate, machine printed information found on documents completed at the time of retail sales. Prior OCR apparatus could not, however, recognize handprinted information, such as dollar amounts, at an acceptably low rejection rate with the requisite document through-put rate. Accordingly, the conventional prior technique has been to capture an image of the entire portion of each document being processed where a dollar amount might be entered by hand. These images were then presented to an operator sitting at a video display terminal (VDT) so that the amounts represented by the images could be visually observed and key entered thus creating a complete data record for each document. These document data records included the machine read information, such as an account number, and the dollar amount which was key entered. It has, in the prior art, often been necessary to key enter additional handprinted information, such as the date of the transaction, and such key entry of information was also necessary when the OCR apparatus could not read the essential machine printed information on the document. Obviously, the speed of document processing could be increased and/or the number of VDT terminals could be reduced if the need to key enter information for every document being processed could be eliminated.
Optical character recognition apparatus capable of recognizing handprinted characters with a high degree of accuracy is known in the art. Such apparatus, however, is generally characterized by a document through put rate which would be unacceptably slow for use in the field of "remittance processing". However, less sophisticated OCR apparatus, particularly apparatus which attempts to recognize characters by simultaneously matching data derived from the scanning of the characters with comparable stored data, i.e., template masks or models, commensurate with know characters, is capable of operation at a speed suitable for "remittance processing". This capability, however, has not previously been employed because characters have not been entered on the retail sales drafts and related documents with sufficient care as to location and/or character formation to ensure an acceptably low rejection rate. Since OCR apparatus must read a character by looking for variations in contrast, i.e., a dark trace against a light background, it has been the prior practice to attempt to guide the location and formation of characters on documents through the use of "fade out" boxes, i.e., rectangles printed in a light color on a white background, the light color not interfering with the operation of the scanner in the OCR apparatus. Use of such "fade out" boxes has not proven to be successful in constraining either the size or location of handprinted characters on documents completed at the time of retail sales transactions.
As noted above, it has been the previous practice to capture an image of the entire "field" in which a dollar amount will be entered on a sales draft document or the like. This field will typically have a minimum length of at least six character spaces and may also include a further space for the decimal point between the dollars and cents portions of the field. In most cases, the dollar amount actually entered on the document comprises fewer than six characters. The captured dollar amount field image, which is subsequently digitized, thus contains unnecessary information, i.e., the blank character spaces, in the prior art. The necessity of transmitting and processing such unnecessarily long digitized image records slows down the operation of the system.